news program Good Morning America. The Biennial happened in 2002, in the wake of 9/11, and the Careys’ exhibit served as a public source of comfort for still grieving Americans. Most importantly, they were able to get the public to think of hugs as a service, something that people could give and receive much more from in return.
In May 2004, a man named Jonathan Littman began giving out hugs in Washington Square Park in New York City every Sunday, under a sign labeled “Free Hugs.” He also traveled to Germany and did the same. He wanted to utilize and share his generosity with the people around him.
One month later, in June 2004, it was reported that Juan Mann gave out hugs for the first time in Sydney, Australia in exactly the same way Littman had done. But Juan included a viral video as well. The band Sick Puppies created a music video out of his travels that became an instant internet success. Juan Mann began giving out hugs, because he wanted to be hugged. Millions of people have watched his video, and although Mann retired from the Free Hug movement in 2009, the video continues to inspire.
Ken Nwadike Jr. is a documentary filmmaker and peace activist known as the “Free Hug Guy.” He attended the 2014 Boston Marathon to spread love and encourage runners with free hugs. He explained, “while viewing the devastation of the 2013 bombing of the Boston Marathon, I was determined to be a participant in the next race. I failed to qualify by just twenty-three seconds, so I decided to attend the event in a different way.” He provided free hugs for runners in the marathon, and this simple act of encouragement resulted in national headlines. The hugs resulted in smiles and gave runners an extra boost of energy. He has invigorated the free hugs movement, and explains that the mission of the Free Hugs Project is to continue the work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “to spread love, inspire change, and raise awareness of social issues.”
The Science Behind Hug Therapy: A Word with Dr. Kipp
To explain oxytocin from a medical standpoint, I asked my friend and colleague Dr. Kipp to share his expertise. Dr. Kipp is an interventional radiologist and former family practitioner. He is triple board certified, and has an extensive formal education, including medical training with two residencies and a fellowship covering a span of nine years of post-graduate education. Dr. Kipp speaks all over the country about issues ranging from the human-animal bond to the Affordable Care Act, and the sanctity of the patient-doctor bond. He is also the host of the radio talk show called Doctor’s Orders.
Have you ever watched a mother with her newborn baby? It doesn’t matter whether you’re participating in the birth of a child or of an animal in nature. The moment the child is born, the natural bond between mother and newborn forms, permanent, durable, and everlasting. Mothers love to cuddle with their newborns. They love the touch of their infants upon their skin. They even describe the distinct smell of their babies.
Animal studies have shown similar results. Mother horses know their own foal, even in a crowded pen of newborn colts. Mother mice are able to identify their pups in a crowded cage, and if the pup is separated from the mother for a short period of time, upon return, the mother showers her baby with maternal affection by licking its fur.
Have you ever wondered why? Childbirth has been described as the greatest possible pain any human will ever experience. When people have any other pain in their lives, they tend to avoid and run from the negative stimulus as fast as their legs can carry them. What is it, then, that makes a mother immediately forget the pain and suffering (sometimes as long as eighteen to twenty hours of pain)? And I mean immediately. It must be something powerful.
It is. Science has analyzed, examined, and studied this phenomenon for years, and has discovered some amazing things. Although an entire neurological system is working in unison before, during, and after the delivery, the one specific chemical that appears to have the most profound effect is oxytocin.
Oxytocin is a neuropeptide, which simply means it is a natural chemical, a hormone, produced by the hypothalamus in the brain. All scientific data points to oxytocin as the number-one explanation for a mother immediately forgetting that pain. If this hormone can have such an extraordinary effect during childbirth, what effect will it have on our everyday lives?
A well-known study at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill highlighted just how powerful oxytocin can be.1
The research includes studying oxytocin release in married couples and cohabitating adults. For ten minutes, the scientists in the lab ask the couple to spend time holding hands, hugging each other, and reminiscing about pleasurable events in their life, like how they met and how they fell in love. The couples then had their blood drawn for evaluation of oxytocin levels, and filled out a questionnaire. The results were telling—those couples who had higher oxytocin levels had better relationships. Science has begun to realize the valuable benefits of oxytocin. More study is necessary to fully understand the effects, and these studies are ongoing.
The dopamine-response system in the brain, under the influence of oxytocin, controls our ability to perceive pleasure. These neuropeptides, oxytocin and dopamine, have become known as endorphins, or pleasure chemicals. Here are some things we do know about oxytocin and hugs: When we embrace someone, oxytocin is released, and this makes us feel warm and fuzzy. This promotes feelings of devotion, trust, and bonding. The touch also enables the participants to develop a stronger sense of acceptance, and decreases loneliness, isolation, and depression. But it’s more than that—the hug leads to the lowering of one’s blood pressure. This appears to be directly related to improvement, or a decrease, in cortisol, the stress hormone. The same oxytocin effect can happen when you hug or interact with a pet. Besides being at the root of the human-human bond, oxytocin is also instrumental in the positive changes observed in the human-animal bond.
The UNC study results tell us some interesting things about human contact, specifically hugs. When a person experiences the inviting touch of another person, a burst of chemicals fills the brain with a wave of warmth. Oxytocin is released, and the pleasure receptors are bathed in pleasure chemicals.
What does this mean for the science behind the hug? Everything. It brings our emotional self in line with our physical self. Science provides the validation that something pleasing has occurred. And it’s even more profound than that, although there is some controversy on whether how the duration of the hug determines how much oxytocin is released, with some scientists claiming a twenty-second hug is needed for any oxytocin release. Recent studies raise the possibility that oxytocin release starts seconds before humans’ exchange contact. Just thinking about a hug may have a similar, if not identical, effect as the actual thing.
Remember the phrase “an apple a day keeps the doctor away?” Medical professionals have analyzed this statement from various angles. What if we changed it to “a hug a day”? Interestingly, a new study at Carnegie Mellon University, involving 404 healthy adults, studied the effect of a hug on their overall susceptibility to developing the common cold after being exposed to the rhinovirus.2
People who perceived greater social support from hugging showed a 32 percent decreased risk in developing the common cold. And even those who developed a cold experienced less pronounced symptoms, if they perceived a positive benefit from hugging, and received more frequent hugs. It appears that hugging protects people who are under stress from the increased risks for colds usually associated with stress. Hugging is a marker of intimacy, and helps generate the feeling that others are there to help in the face of adversity. Psychologists have described hugging as follows: hugs surround the recipient with a “force field,” or an invisible armor that gives the person a psychological feeling of safety and security.3 4
What’s more telling is what is exactly happening at the physiological level. When the person receives the hug, touch, or human contact, this stimulates pressure receptors under your skin in a way that leads to a cascade of events, including an increase in vagal activity. Specifically, stimulation of the vagus nerve triggers the hypothalamus to release oxytocin.
